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While he may have been an angsty young man, prone to bouts of self-doubt and guilt at abandoning his widowed mother, Xu Xiake is worshipped as the father of Chinese backpacking, and several of the routes he traversed some 400 years ago remain in use today.
At the age of 20, newly wed Xu Xiake (1587-1641) had all the trappings of a hopeless romantic. Socially awkward and fond of poetry, his contemporaries said his slightly befuddled expression gave the impression he was easily confused. When his father, a well-to-do merchant, died when Xu was just 18, he was left with the responsibility of handling the farm his father left him and caring for his 60-year-old mother. In a biography of Xu, his friend Qian Qianyi wrote he was “as downcast as a caged bird facing the corner.”
But Xu harbored a secret ambition: to travel. At the time, the idea of a young man deserting his family to enjoy a prolonged period of wandering was considered downright immoral. Children were raised on tales of philosopher Zengzi (曾子)(502 B.C.–432 B.C.), long held up as a paragon of filial virtue who never left his parents for a single day of his life. Moreover, in Xu’s time, virtually no one traveled for travel’s sake. Even after Xu’s death, some Qing Dynasty(1616–1911) scholars described his wanderlust as “grotesque” (畸癖 j～ p#). Lucky for Xu, his mother was cut from a different cloth. She made a pact with her son that he could travel when the spring grass sprouted and return when the frost tinged the autumn leaves. “At home you’re like a fenced-in chicken or a harnessed pony. Go travel, and show me paintings of the scenery you see,” he recalled her saying in his travelogue. With his mother’s blessing secured, Xu set off, servant in tow, with little more than a walking stick and a quilt. According to an epitaph written by a friend, Xu ate whatever he could find and could survive without food for several days. Abiding by the pact with his mother, Xu’s early travels usually lasted less than three months and were limited to the eastern provinces. Even so, such excursions were no mean feat in the 17th century. Xu noted in his travelogue that it took him three weeks to travel from his Zhejiang hometown to the border of Fujian Province, a distance of roughly 800 kilometers.
Xu reveled in exploring mountains and climbing rock faces using only a rope ladder, cloth strips and the help of his travel companions. He claimed in his notes that “a real man should wake up in clouds at sunrise, and spend the evening on Cangwu (苍梧) [a mountain in today’s Guangxi], instead of applying himself to useless pursuits in his room.” But his travelogue also reveals something of the inner conflict that tormented him.
At the age of 20, newly wed Xu Xiake (1587-1641) had all the trappings of a hopeless romantic. Socially awkward and fond of poetry, his contemporaries said his slightly befuddled expression gave the impression he was easily confused. When his father, a well-to-do merchant, died when Xu was just 18, he was left with the responsibility of handling the farm his father left him and caring for his 60-year-old mother. In a biography of Xu, his friend Qian Qianyi wrote he was “as downcast as a caged bird facing the corner.”
But Xu harbored a secret ambition: to travel. At the time, the idea of a young man deserting his family to enjoy a prolonged period of wandering was considered downright immoral. Children were raised on tales of philosopher Zengzi (曾子)(502 B.C.–432 B.C.), long held up as a paragon of filial virtue who never left his parents for a single day of his life. Moreover, in Xu’s time, virtually no one traveled for travel’s sake. Even after Xu’s death, some Qing Dynasty(1616–1911) scholars described his wanderlust as “grotesque” (畸癖 j～ p#). Lucky for Xu, his mother was cut from a different cloth. She made a pact with her son that he could travel when the spring grass sprouted and return when the frost tinged the autumn leaves. “At home you’re like a fenced-in chicken or a harnessed pony. Go travel, and show me paintings of the scenery you see,” he recalled her saying in his travelogue. With his mother’s blessing secured, Xu set off, servant in tow, with little more than a walking stick and a quilt. According to an epitaph written by a friend, Xu ate whatever he could find and could survive without food for several days. Abiding by the pact with his mother, Xu’s early travels usually lasted less than three months and were limited to the eastern provinces. Even so, such excursions were no mean feat in the 17th century. Xu noted in his travelogue that it took him three weeks to travel from his Zhejiang hometown to the border of Fujian Province, a distance of roughly 800 kilometers.
Xu reveled in exploring mountains and climbing rock faces using only a rope ladder, cloth strips and the help of his travel companions. He claimed in his notes that “a real man should wake up in clouds at sunrise, and spend the evening on Cangwu (苍梧) [a mountain in today’s Guangxi], instead of applying himself to useless pursuits in his room.” But his travelogue also reveals something of the inner conflict that tormented him.